


A Heart Full of Song

by TheAllKnowingOwl



Series: A Heart Full of Song [1]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bye Bye Bouchard, Character Study, Creeper Elias Bouchard, Do not repost, Elias Gets What’s Coming to Him, Fire, Gen, I want to tag fluff but the ratio’s too uneven for that, Inspired by Music, M/M, Martin is a Mechanisms fan, Mechanisms!Jonathan Sims, Murder, Music, Mutual Pining, Pining, Pining Martin Blackwood, Season/Series 01, Season/Series 02, Season/Series 03, Season/Series 04, Sort Of, Swearing, The Mechanisms - Freeform, You will not be missed, canon typical worms, do not repost to another site
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-17
Updated: 2020-02-17
Packaged: 2021-02-26 12:34:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22776406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheAllKnowingOwl/pseuds/TheAllKnowingOwl
Summary: Martin Blackwood’s lungs breathe music. His blood sings a strange rhythm.(In which Martin discovers The Mechanisms at the tender age of fifteen and doesn’t look back once).
Relationships: Martin Blackwood & Everyone, Martin Blackwood & Jonathan Sims, Martin Blackwood & Martin Blackwood’s Mother, Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims
Series: A Heart Full of Song [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1637449
Comments: 25
Kudos: 282
Collections: RaeLynn's Epic Rec List





	A Heart Full of Song

**Author's Note:**

> Martin is three years younger than Jon in this fic. Standard warnings for worms and Archive-typical stuff.

The first time Martin Blackwood heard The Mechanisms, he’s fifteen.

It’s the summer holidays and he was in the back garden, avoiding his mother (_he looks more and more like his father with every passing day_). The sun is shining, beating down on rural Greater Manchester unforgivingly, so he’s sprawled under a tree to escape the heat, absorbed in his latest poetry anthology. Even in the shade the day was boiling, and periodically he have to pause reading to wipe the collecting sweat from his brow.

The day was quiet- that much Martin remembered. Vaguely, he could hear the faint sounds of the motorway, and someone in the neighbourhood’s kids were splashing in a paddling pool, but for the most part the day was peaceful. Perhaps not tranquil- the weather was too hot for that- but stifled, maybe.

Peppy music drifted across from next door’s garden, but it was nothing special, just this week’s Top 40. Nothing Martin hadn't heard before. He flicked over another page, letting the sound blend into the background.

The day was calm, just another empty stretch of time to waste until he could go back to school. It was not lovely, but entirely unremarkable.

It was the day that would change his entire life.

As Martin finished the latest verse, the pop music cut off suddenly, only to be replaced with a single haunting line of guitar. There was something vaguely menacing about it, but no sooner had he thought that a voice joined the melody.

_ That voice… _ At once, Martin was transfixed. It began almost smoothly and lilting, and although he couldn’t quite make out the words, he knew they were beyond anything he’d ever heard before.

Then the tone changed and Martin was swept away into a raging ocean of music, caught in the web of that hoarse voice. The teenager could only sit back and hold on for dear life as that guttural utterance stormed through a murmur, became a mutter, became a _ shout_.

Finally, the song of a lifetime crashed to an end, and Martin barely caught the opening chords of the next before it was cut off with a muffled swear and the now boringly vanilla pop music resumed.

Red-faced from more than the heat, Martin poked his head over the fence to find his neighbour tossing a CD case away from him in annoyance. 19 years old and slumped beside a battery-powered radio, David had returned from university the week before, and was now about as bored as Martin wished he had the energy to feel.

“Um, hi?” he squeaked, mustering the courage to speak further as David tossed an annoyed look at him. “W-What were you playing?”

“Some shit band my flatmate sent me,” the older teenager said, glancing at the discarded CD then back at Martin. A coy smile began to dance on his lips. “Why. You want it?”

“Yes!” Martin blurted, flushing as he backtracked, tucking a lock of too-long hair behind his ear. “I mean- if you don’t mind-“ he added, trying for casual and arriving somewhere near desperate. “Yes please?”

David huffed a laugh and tossed the case to him. Fumbling, the curly-haired boy barely managed to catch it, pressing it to his chest closely, _ reverently_.

“Keep it,” his neighbour suggested, turning back to his magazine. “It’s rubbish anyway.”

Babbling meaningless thanks, Martin turned and ran to his room, pulling the battered radio from under his head and rummaging in his bedside drawers for headphones. His mum had a migraine: he didn’t want to disturb her. She always felt worse in the summer.

(_As the days lengthen, so do the years between now and that long ago June evening when he left and never came back_).

With shaking hands, he plugged them in, practically shoved them over his ears, then lifted the CD from its case gently. With soft (_careful, worshipful_) hands, Martin placed the disk in the waiting bay and pressed play.

This was- as Martin would later recognise- the awakening of a lifetime, and in more ways than one.

The first song, if possible, was even better than the first time he’d listened. Now that he was able to distinguish the words from the unending pulse of the music, Martin was swept up by the ingenious lyrics that cut and shaped reality to its own design. Even so, their cadences and meanings didn’t properly register until the second (_third, fourth_) times, for all Martin could focus on was _ that voice_.

How the throaty growl alternated between silken whispers and gravelly chanting.

How the breathy croons jumped to husky utterances and back in one breath.

It was all Martin could do to lie back and drink it all in.

The first time Martin heard The Mechanisms, he lay in a dark and sweltering room, knowing his life had changed _ forever_.

-

Over the next few months, Martin must have listened to that CD hundreds of times.

In a bizarre stroke of luck, he managed to buy a Creative Zen MP3 player from the elderly lady at Number 4. Her granddaughter had sent her one for Christmas, but she had no use for it, so she ended up selling it to Martin cheap. It still hurt his wallet, but it was _ so, so worth it, _because now he could listen to The Mechanisms (as he now knew they were called) without being afraid of damaging or losing his precious CD.

The blond teenager listened to it on the bus to school, when the local gift shop he worked at part-time was empty, when he finished his GCSEs with almost straight As, a few Bs, and that one A* he’d worked so hard to get in English and his mother still refused to look at him.

(_He’d worked himself to the bone, put in so many hours, broken down crying from the pressure so many times- would she recognise him now_?

_ The answer is always _ no).

David passed him the next album the next day. He didn’t need to say anything that time.

Martin listened to the entire album in one sweltering evening- 16 now and hurting.

Then again. And again. And again.

Over and over he listened to that music until the loneliness faded into the background of his life, and he carried on.

There were more tracks on his MP3 player, but none were as important as The Mechanisms. 

Life carried on. Martin entered Sixth Form. Then he left.

Nothing hurts more than caring for someone who doesn’t love you. On some level, Martin knew that, but he’d never been good at letting go.

He worked dead end jobs, lied on his CV to con his way into better ones, then somehow managed to snag a researcher’s position at the Magnus Institute in London. Mr Bouchard had been a bit of a creep, but with a paycheque that good (_a mother who didn’t want him, who wanted to leave_), Martin was prepared to look the other way.

It wasn’t like Mr Bouchard could see him listening to music on the job, anyway.

The day before he left for the city, David pressed two CDs into his hands.

Numbly, Martin looked down to find a familiar logo staring up at him: The Mechanisms.

“They broke up,” his neighbour said, a touch sympathetically as if he could truly understand the way he’d torn Martin’s world apart. “But I managed to get the last two albums. You’ve got them all now!”

“Thanks,” Martin muttered bitterly, because _ no, no he did not_.

“Sorry about your mum,” David murmured, clapping him on the arm, before turning to leave. “It sucks, doesn’t it.”

“Yeah,” the younger man agreed, though he couldn’t find it in himself to feel anything at all.

Martin stayed up into the small hours of the morning, downloading the albums to his second (_third, fourth_) hand phone. He’d finally bought one after entering the workforce, and the first thing he’d done was move all of his music to the scratched device.

He kept the player though, tucked pride of place under his bed along with the two CDs and the radio that had first given him sound.

Something occurred to him, and Martin laughed, more bitterly than ever before.

It made sense that the things he loved most were being ripped away (_carefully cut, torn by one who didn’t care_) at the same time.

(_Martin listened to the new albums on the train to London, and if his eyes were wet, well… Air conditioning, you know_?)

-

London was… Big. Empty and full and bursting with people all at the same time.

For the first time, Martin lived alone (_his loneliness had been of a different kind before_) and he… Loved it. Sort of.

Having the flat to himself ensured no one complained when he played The Mechanisms in the morning (_in the afternoon, in the dead of night_), but a person never quite realises the difference having someone else in the house makes. His flat was small, but he felt the empty spaces anyway.

There were good bits, though, and Martin resolved to make them grow. He’s nothing if not resourceful, after all.

Instead of moping, Martin threw himself into his work. He missed the mark countlessly in the first few months, and most of the time he’s lowkey terrified someone’s going to find out he lied on his CV, but as the days passed and no one expressed doubt in his credentials , Martin felt the vice around his heart unclench somewhat. It was still there, of course, but no one seemed inclined to call his bluff, so Martin contented himself with the background buzz of terror instead.

He still messed up here and there, but as he read and researched and actually looked to see what his coworkers did, Martin gradually began to feel vaguely competent.

The only person who still seemed dubious of his capabilities was Jonathan Sims, but that was another problem altogether.

Mostly because of Martin’s huge, great, enormous, pulsating crush on the man.

Martin didn’t know what it was about his fellow researcher (_his hands, his voice, his mouth, his hair, his eyes, his neck_?), but he knew that he was falling fast and hard for the acerbic man, no matter how many times the snapped at him.

Because Martin _ looked_, because Martin _ saw _ the shoulders slumped in exhaustion as Jon tried to do the work of two (_three, four_) men, the deepening circles under his eyes, never quite hidden by the crooked glasses, the softness in his eyes when he though no one else was looking…

Because just because no one looks to see, doesn’t mean that there isn’t anything there if you just _ pay attention_.

There was something else, too, something about Jon’s voice when he growled at other incompetents (_but usually Martin_), when he cursed at people for misfiling books (_but usually Martin_), when he snapped at anyone for pissing him off (_but usually Martin_) that made the blond man’s attention _ stick_.

(_The Mechanisms pounded behind his eyelids, but that was a given with how much he played them_).

Then Gertrude disappeared and things went to _ shit _.

Martin was transferred to the Archives, along with Tim, Sasha, and _ Jon _.

Things were better- sort of- but also worse. 

He got to bring Jon tea every day, but the man also sequestered himself away from prying eyes in his office. The closest Martin could get to being in his company the rest of the time was hearing the distant recitations from behind a closed door. That is, when he didn’t have The Mechanisms playing in his ears.

He got a pay raise, but he was also doing the work of three people. There was a reason the Archives were only a step above Artefact Storage, and that was that statements were less likely to bite you. You generally didn’t get scarred in quite the same way, that's for sure.

He got closer with his team, but he was also more alone than ever. Tim and Sasha were great people, and even if Martin wasn’t on better relations with Jon, he was becoming better and better friends with the other two with every day. No one could replace them, not to him.

It’s just that there was no one who could do that. Outside of work, Martin was just as alone as ever, his only companions in the evenings a poetry anthology and the ever present cacophony of The Mechanisms.

When Jane Prentiss attacked, he couldn’t bring himself to be surprised when no one noticed.

Imprisoned in his own home, cut off from humanity, Martin waited for death for almost _ two weeks_. _ Two weeks _ of hearing his end on the other side of that door.

The worst part was he couldn’t even listen to The Mechanisms to take his mind off it.

The power was out, and he couldn’t use his phone- not when Prentiss had it. 

Instead, Martin could only listen with dread at the scratching and boring of the worms, stamping on any that managed to get through his frantically placed defences.

Finally, he couldn’t take it anymore, and began to sing.

‘Our Man Jack’- that first. Shakily, broken up by sobs and interspersed with sniffling swallows, but soon stronger and braver, until he was bellowing it, screaming at the top of his lungs as he waited for death to take him, waited for someone, _ anyone _ to hear! An anthem for the frightened.

But no one came.

When he had finished the first, Martin moved on to the next, then the next. He ran through each album, each word engraved into his very soul as if waiting for this very moment.

Finally, finally, he stopped, and there was no more sound. No more knocking, no more insistent writhing of worms at every entrance. Just silence.

Hurriedly, Martin took a jar, before peeping through the spy hole in his door. No one was there.

Ready to slam it shut, he cracked open the door and stepped out into the hallway. In a flash, he scooped up some of the few worms still left in the corridor, and pegged it for the Institute, running as if his life depended on it.

_ It did_.

Martin didn’t take his albums with him- he knew it wasn’t worth the risk, but now he knew that he carried them with him in a way that could never be removed.

Bursting into the Archives, Martin thought he scared Jon half to death, but it was worth it! He had to know! He had to be safe!

Eventually, Jon suggested he bunk in Document Storage, and he took the opportunity gratefully, stopping on the way to fetch a corkscrew from the break room. It paid to be prepared.

Martin wanted to sleep. He wanted to fall into a deep, dreamless slumber free of worms, something he’d never quite managed int he fitful naps he’d taken over the past two weeks.

He also wanted to escape that room. To escape the glint of guilt that burned in Jonathan Sim’s eyes when he’d realised that no one had known, no one had realised that Martin was trapped for _ two weeks _, and no one came.

That Martin could’ve been dead and no one would’ve known.

It’s not worth thinking about. Not anymore.

-

Over the next few months, Martin prepared in the best ways that he could, buying CO2 canisters with Institute money, carrying a corkscrew with him at all times. He planned and he plotted for all eventualities, stashing tins of food around the Institute, along with caches of canisters.

He began to feel more at home in the Archives, humming Mechanisms songs to himself as he made himself tea in the mornings, singing softly in the dead of night when nightmares of Prentiss’ worm-infested face filled his mind.

If Jon seeing him in his underwear had happened even a month ago, Martin would’ve been haunted by the event for weeks, months, _ years_, but he was different to who he’d been before.

It had been embarrassing, sure, but that kind of trauma didn’t stand up in the face of real fear.

Martin had almost managed to relax.

Then Jane Prentiss attacked, and things went to shit again.

Hiding in Documents Storage with Jon, Martin almost felt seen. If it had been any other day, he would’ve treasured their heart-to-heart, kept it in the front of his mind for weeks, but Prentiss was on the other side of the door, and he had better things to focus on.

Then their conversation ran out, and they sat in uneasy silence.

Martin was so sick of _ silence_.

He just wanted to hear that music again, listen to that voice once more.

But he’d have to make do, and in that moment, the music that has kept him going in the darkest of times- tided him over when his mother put herself in a home, shielded him when Jane Prentiss lair siege to his flat- poured from his lips until Martin was a fount of living song, a mouthpiece for that wonderful music. He comforted himself in the only way he knew: with The Mechanisms.

‘Elysian Fields’.

Fitting for one facing his death.

“Martin,” Jon murmured softly, a note of surprise in his voice. “Is that-?”

“The Mechanisms? Yes,” Martin broke off, looking away. The man he loved was speaking to him in the gentlest way he’d ever heard the man speak, and he was too embarrassed (_terrified, hopeless_) to appreciate it. Then, nervously: “Why? Do you like them too?”

“I- um.” Jon glanced away briefly, his loose, shoulder-length hair swinging forward to shield his face from view, before looking back. His dark cheeks were tinged with red. “I may- I may have been in a band in uni. Um. That one.”

“You-!” Martin exclaimed, eyes goggling in shock and mortification. “What-? _ Instrument_?”

“Harmonica,” Jon replied, clearing his throat in embarrassment. “And… “ In a smaller voice, “... Vocals.”

“You’re-!”

“Jonny d’Ville, yes,” his seemingly uptight boss replied, looking anywhere but Martin. “I’d be surprised you didn’t recognise me, but I did have quite the show persona-“

“I never went to a show,” Martin interrupted self-consciously, his entire worldview turned on its head. “Too young.”

They sat in silence for a while further, then Jon opened his mouth again.

“It’s been a while since I last sang, but we’re going to die in a moment anyway,” he muttered, before turning to Martin. “Care to join me?”

Then he opened his mouth and began to sing in a smooth, clear voice that Martin had and would never be able to forget. Hastily, he joined the song, adding his voice to the music, forming a duet that snaked and climbed, intertwining and developing as Jon improvised harmonies over and around the tune, turning their funeral dirge into something quite beautiful.

Even if it was only going to last for the next hour at most, Martin was going to treasure this memory for the rest of his life.

They’d just finished ‘Elysian Fields’ when Tim smashed through the wall and they had to run.

He didn’t miss the loosening of Jon’s shoulders as they’d sang though.

-

Martin found Gertrude and all that progress disappeared.

Jon pulled away, not just from him, but from everyone, to the point that they’d been unaware of just how close he’d been before.

(_Martin returned to his flat. The albums sat on his shelf quietly. _

_ Martin didn’t listen to The Mechanisms for a long time after that_).

Then they found the body and Jon vanished, on the run from the police.

Missing him so terribly it felt like his heart had been torn from his chest, the younger man finally played them again, pressing the earbuds firmly to his head so that he might feel like Jon was with him. The curtains pulled against the midday sun, he lay in the shallow darkness of his room, just like he had all those years ago, crying into his pillow.

He just wanted Jon to come back.

_ He just wanted him to be safe._

The illusion of closeness was shattered by the passing of a blaring car horn, and Martin was alone once more.

-

Jon was back, but the silence was greater than ever.

Tim died, Sasha was gone, and Martin was the only original assistant left.

Basira and Melanie were trapped, Daisy was leashed, and Martin?

He felt further from Jon than he’d ever been before.

(_Looking down at a comatose man, Martin curses his younger self. _

_ He’d never been more wrong_).

-

Over the next six months, Martin drew himself away from the others. 

The CDs gathered dust on his shelf. The songs on his phone remained unplayed.

Even after Jon returned, Martin couldn’t bring himself to listen to them again.

(_If he did, he’d just throw himself further into the Lonely, and his plans don’t allow for that just yet. _

_ A smaller voice whispers: if he did, he might turn back_).

-

Jon cared. That’s the worst part.

The thing he’d longed for all these years, and it was just out of his grasp.

(_The Lonely welcomes him with open arms_).

-

Jon found him in the Lonely, and for the first time in many months, Martin felt like singing.

His arms around him, their hearts beating as one- a rhythmic melody only they could recognise. A song for them alone.

Once they were out, Elias- no, _ Jonah _ monologuing behind them, Martin made his decision.

The traces of the fire accelerant were still there, enough that Martin could still see the complete silver-like tracks snaking their way to the Panopticon in the harsh light of the torch.

It’s enough that Martin could reach the lighter still sequestered in one of Jon’s deep pockets and set them alight.

As he held Jon to his chest so tightly he didn’t think he could ever, would ever let go, and the Head of the Institute let out a furious (_an anguished, a terrified_) scream as his bodies went up in flames, Martin thought a tiny thought that barely broke through he crackling of the fire.

_ It sounded like hope. _

-

In a cottage in Scotland, Jonah dead and the only noises around them the gentle lowing of Highland cows, Jon and Martin make a music of their own.

It’s in the clinking of mugs of tea, in the touching of hands and the brushing of lips.

It’s in their hearts, in their minds, in their very souls: a song of love.

A song that will never leave them, a sound that Martin will sing for the rest of his days.

One that he knows Jon will always sing back to him.

**Author's Note:**

> I went into this with the intention to write fluff and came out the other end with almost 4000 words of angst. Why.
> 
> I am [ theallknowingowlagain ](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/theallknowingowlagain) on tumblr! Come chat!


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